Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Yugoslav Art'

In this project, contemporary theater and performance art is examined in four cities in ex-Yugoslavia. War has pervaded all of the sites in some way, interrupting a sense of normalcy, altering the city physically as well as ideologically. For that reason, interaction with urban space becomes a central element in performances—whether it serves to preserve the city’s identity amidst destruction, to cleanse the city from the shame of official exploits, to break from the insular legacy of nationalism that flooded the streets, or to gather the city together in a process of collective healing.

Ethnicity is an important social construct mobilised in the discourses of multicultural education. At present, little research exists on the way ethnicity impacts on the schooling experiences of students with former Yugoslav background (SFYB) in Australia. This qualitative study looks at the daily realities of twelve SFYB at a Western Australian government secondary school. Particular attention is paid to the management of their ethnic identities to achieve their educational, social and other goals. Data gathered from the twelve in-depth, guided interviews with SFYB is analysed through the lens of critical multiculturalism, posited as one of several notions of multiculturalism and one with a specific social justice agenda. Theories of hybridity developed by Homi Bhabha and Stuart Hall are translated into the critical multiculturalist framework and provide a further development of the analysis of the data in which hybridity is seen as both experiences and enactments. The study findings suggest that these SFYB embody the principles of critical multiculturalism as skilful managers of contingencies of ethnic identities, aspirations and challenges they encounter at the school. The study also proposes that the notion of critical, power conscious hybridity could be useful as a conceptual tool in the future work of critical multiculturalists.

Focus of on-going cross-cultural investigation has throughout the time shown that inadequate language skills paired with absence of knowledge of cultural practices and norms within the receiving society would create a number of stress behaviors among immigrants, often manifested as lowered mental health status- depression, anxiety, confusion; feelings of marginality and alienation; psychosomatic symptoms and identity confusion (Berry and Annis, 1988; Greenberg & Greenberg, 1989; Kessler, Turner and House, 1988; Shams and Jackson, 1994; Vega et al., 1986; Vinokur, Price and Caplan, 1991; Winefield, Winefield, Tiggermann and Goldney, 1991). It was further noticed that refugee populations across the world are adapting to the receiving societies in a much slower rate then other migrating groups (Greenberg & Greenberg, 1989), and yet due to sensibilities surrounding research of a refugee population, there are still questions surrounding this process. In addition, it appears that the attempts to demystify acculturation and uncover objective underpinnings of it, has further reduced the current concept undermining validity and reliability of the findings. Therefore need for subjective experience and definition of acculturation, as well as reconsideration of complexity of the phenomenon (acculturation) was recognised by this research. This study was designed to offer a qualitative insight into the acculturative differences within a family unit among refugees from former Yugoslavia. 21 women, recent refugee- arrivals were requested to participate in the open- end interview. In the semi- structured interview the women were asked to give a detailed account of their personal, their partners’ and their children’s experiences concerning the emotional, social, economical, occupational and psychological aspects of their and their family- members’ acculturation processes. The obtained data was analysed through the means of narrative and Erickson’s analytic induction. The results showed that cultural incompatibilities have spread into diverse spheres of living, thus complexity of the acculturation-related problems was acknowledged. The results showed that (1) split families (due to immigration), (2) inability to establish new social ties in the novel environment and (3) decay in professional status were often reported in connection with eroded physical and mental well-being of the participants and their families. The research also looked at cultural diversities, and gender differences, concentrating on concepts of resilience and coping strategies within the acculturative practice. It appears that cognitive restructuring and the ability to “let go” of the previous lives was the best coping mechanism.

The basic, universal movement of the running body has been repeated and made visible in aesthetic, scientific, and political debates. Such debates of the body may depend on live movements in real space-time, movements articulated by motion capture devices, or movements that exercise in imagination: a head of state who uses the running body to manipulate his political subject, for example, or a series of images taken from an optical motion capture system that simultaneously represents and dissects movement patterns of the body in its swiftest motions, or a sound art installation that voices the familiar dynamics of running steps and heavy breathing. In each instance, the bodily practice of running is extracted from its seemingly unmediated everyday, placed instead within aesthetic methodologies and technologies to scrutinize the movement and its complex of meanings. This action is meant to reveal that real experience-that nonfictional movement, as it were-of the body running, to see into the rhetorical, cultural productions of our public, bodily realities. I begin this inquiry by defining the term "running body" and examining the manner in which that body was scientifically observed and aesthetically codified in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Then, the running body is investigated in experimental choreography, visual arts, and political demonstrations in the 1960s and 1970s. Thirdly, I will address the use of the actual running body within contemporary art exhibitions, as either an intervention or interruption to accustomed meaning-making within traditional spaces for art. At the dissertation's end will be an exploration of the running body as a critical method for reorienting the narrative of contemporary history with image technologies, art installation devices, and the moving body. This study demonstrates that if, at the very base of our existence, our bodies move the world and, in turn, the world around us moves our body, this same reciprocity can hold true in shaping historical consciousness and self-consciousness.

This thesis explores forms of Pop Art on the territory of the former Yugoslavia in the 1960s and 1970s, seeking to identify its local variants. Yugoslavia, a single party state, built on the legacy of the anti-fascist Partisan struggle, principles of solidarity, egalitarianism, self-management and a strong sense of internationalism due to its founding role in the Non-Aligned Movement, was, at the same time, a country immersed in what has been termed 'utopian consumerism'. The thesis examines how Yugoslav artists during this period dealt with the burgeoning consumer society and media boom, kitsch and the Westernization of Yugoslav culture, phenomena which were ideologically at odds with the country’s own socialist principles. Starting from an analysis of the role of the artist in post-war Yugoslav system of self-management, the thesis proposes that Pop in Yugoslavia can be read as a critical site of articulation and negotiation of that role. Yugoslavia’s founding principles, formed as a legacy of the People’s Liberation Struggle (1941 – 1945), were based upon self-management and the introduction of social property, with art being a democratizing force with a central emancipatory role in the building of the new socialist state. But socialist modernism gradually relegated culture to a more illustrative role, as a form of ‘soft power’ for the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The thesis proposes a reading of artists’ diverse engagements with popular culture and materials as varied expressions of resistance to the severing of links with Yugoslavia’s founding principles. My original contribution to knowledge lies in the identification of two strands of Pop in the country–‘Yugoslav Pop Reactions’ and ‘Yugoslav Countercultural Pop’ which each turned to popular culture and cheap everyday materials as an alternative channel through which to respond to socialist modernism. My claim is that the two positions represent two diametrically opposed responses to the disenchantment with socialist modernism and artists’ roles in society – both using the language of Pop Art but representing two different conceptual positions. The thesis is structured around three core questions. Firstly it asks whether it is possible to retrospectively apply the category of Pop Art to artworks which never originally claimed this term. Secondly it examines ways in which Pop tendencies altered the position of Yugoslav female artists, who, marginalised in a heavily male-dominated environment, looked to Pop as an enabling force, allowing new working methods and‘giving licence’ to new types of practices. The third question is concerned with the relationship between power, politics and Pop Art in Yugoslavia, asking to what extent Yugoslav Pop was a form ofpolitical practice, and to what extent is it was a local adaptation of international currents and themes. This thesis is associated with Tate’s multiannual research into ‘global pop’, which culminated in the exhibition ‘The World Goes Pop’ (September 2015 – January 2016, Tate Modern) through a Collaborative Doctoral Award (AHRC). This involved an advisory role in the exhibition research on the territory of the former Yugoslavia, identifying artists and artworks for potential inclusion in the exhibition. The methodology of the thesis was in part shaped by this context, beginning with close studies of artworks, their critical reception, and the study of their context–the sites of production and exhibition in the country at the time. Whilst both local and international literature on Yugoslav art history, global Pop Art as well as Yugoslav material culture and political context has been important, the core research involved oral histories, and visits to artists’ studios, museum collections, depots and archives in search of original artworks. The thesis draws on approximately twenty interviews with artists, curators, art historians and other art workers who were active in 1960s and 1970s, combined with the above-mentioned scholarship.

This thesis considers Seven Easy Pieces, Marina Abramović’s 2005 cycle of re-performances at the Guggenheim Museum, as part of a broader effort to recuperate the art of the 1960s and 1970s. In re-creating canonical pieces known to her solely through fragmentary documentation, Abramović helped to bring into focus how performances by Joseph Beuys, Bruce Nauman, Gina Pane, Vito Acconci, Valie Export, and herself were being re-coded by the mediating institutions. Stressing the production of difference, my analysis revolves around two of the pieces in detail. First, the Deleuzian insight that repetition produces difference sheds light on the artist’s embellishment of her own Lips of Thomas (1975) with a series of Yugoslav partisan symbols. What follows is an examination of the enduring role of this iconography, exploring the 1970s Yugoslav context as well as the more recent phenomenon of “Balkan Art,” an exhibition trend drawing upon orientalizing discourse. While the very presence of these works in Tito’s Yugoslavia complicates the situation, I show how the transplanted vocabulary of body art may be read against the complex interweaving of official rhetoric and dissident activity. I focus on two distinct interpretations of Marxism: first, the official emphasis on discipline and the body as material producer, and second, the critique of the cult of personality as well as dissident notions about the role of practice in social transformation. It is in this sense that a distinctly spiritualist vocabulary also acquires a political dimension in drawing upon movements such as Fluxus and Neo-Dada, and underscoring the value of the immaterial and the non-productive. Finally, I explain how a reversal of Slavoj Žižek’s tripartite structure of ideology can help to articulate how a repetition of Beuys’s actions in this context actually displaces their cosmological aspect by virtue of the re-enactment setting alone.

This study is an attempt to clarify whether Cuba and Yugoslavia adhere to the role expectations of the nonaligned movement. Chapter I introduces the criteria for nonalignment which are also considered as the role expectations for members of the nonaligned movement. Chapter II focuses on whether Cuba and Yugoslavia do fulfill the role expectations of the nonaligned movement. Chapter III discusses the voting behavior of Cuba and Yugoslavia on issues important to the nonaligned movement in the United Nations' General Assembly. Chapter IV concludes this study with the major finding that Yugoslavia adheres strictly to the role expectations of the nonaligned movement while Cuba's nonaligned status is questionable.

The development of joint criminal enterprise at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has been controversial since the doctrine was first created in 1997. For the judgments rendered by the ICTY to be perceived as legitimate, the doctrines used to bring charges against defendants must also be perceived as legitimate. The purpose of my thesis is to study the application of joint criminal enterprise at the ICTY and examine how the doctrine has influenced the length of sentences given. I find that joint criminal enterprise may be influencing longer sentences and the three categories of joint criminal enterprise are being used differently on defendants of different power levels. By empirically analyzing the patterns developing at the ICTY, I can see how joint criminal enterprise is influencing sentencing and the fairness of trials.

Most health professionals are aware of the amazing diversity of the Australian population, which is made up of people from over 140 different countries. Of these, an increasing number have arrived as refugees under Australia's humanitarian resettlement program. Research indicates that at least 30% of the 12,000 or so people arriving in Australia under the humanitarian assistance programmes each year have been exposed to physical and emotional torture and trauma. They also have well documented health deficits relating to the health standards in their countries of origin, the level of deprivation experienced prior to arrival in Australia, and the time they have spent in transit before arriving in Australia. The purpose of this study was to review the health status of refugees from the former Yugoslavia, and to identify the perceived needs of this group, which represents one of Canberra's largest communities of recently arrived refugees. Utilising both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, findings showed that the cohort had significantly lower levels of both physical and mental health than the wider ACT and Australian population. The difficulties of socialisation of the refugees into the Australian lifestyle are highlighted. In particular, findings from the study have demonstrated the lack of appropriate information given to some refugees on arrival, and the struggles experienced by most of the group with learning a new language, and coping with unemployment and inadequate housing. The problem of covert political harassment in Canberra was also described during the interview process. Recommendations for improving the situation for these refugees were that information for refugees prior to, and following arrival in Australia needs to be consistent and readily available, and there needs to be provision of a formalised support system from the time of arrival, including a review of language facilities. The study also recommended that culturally sensitive health promotion and treatment programs should be incorporated into current health service provision. Nurses are identified as the appropriate health providers to take a leading role in developing such programs for refugees, although findings from this study indicate that current nurse education programs need to place more emphasis on a transcultural framework for the provision of care.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has been both contentious and successful. By examining the ICTY from a Levinasian ethical standpoint, we might be able to understand how the court uses language to enforce ethical and moral standards upon post-war societies. Using linguistic methods of analysis combined with traditional data about the ICTY, I empirically examine the court using ordinary least squares (OLS) in order to show the impact that language has upon the court's decision making process. I hypothesize that the court is an ethical entity, and therefore we should not see any evidence of bias against Serbs and that language will provide a robust view of the court as an ethical mechanism.

When describing sexual violence as a ’weapon of war’ or as systematic in the setting of a conflict, many times there is no distinction between how it is used during different types of conflicts. Moreover, they are often discussed as either a crime against the ”enemy” or a crime against women. This research seeks to describe sexual violence during the genocides of Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia and to find whether there is an underlying genocidal intent. It also aims to emphasize the intersectional nature of such crimes — the targeting of a woman on the basis of both gender and group belonging. With the use of books, journal and research articles, reports and interview transcripts — this paper is based on a qualitative research method aiming to describe the underlying intent of the strategic use of sexual violence targeting women in genocide. It is the interpretation of the gathered material and theories which enables the discussion to take form. The genocidal intent behind rapes and sexual violence is not only to use women as reproductive vessels, prevent births within a group and inflict such injuries that would make a woman suffer and become less worthy in her community — but also to humiliate a group through sexual violence in a way that fragments it into elimination. By acknowledging the heightened effect sexual violence and its genocidal intent has on the intersection of group belonging and gender, women’s suffering is not overshadowed by the atrocity of genocide. Women are often discriminated against on either the basis of ethnicity or gender; however, when one emphasizes both elements as reasons for women being targets of genocidal sexual violence, perhaps the crimes could be properly dealt with and responded to by the international community. The research concludes that the systematic use of forced impregnation, mutilation, sexual humiliation and targeting of female identity carries a genocidal intent — resulting in the fragmentation of cultures and communities and furthers female subordination. The crime of genocidal sexual violence is a crime against the individual woman and the group of which she belongs.

This thesis explores the conditions under which mass rapes are more likely to be incorporated into the strategy of military or paramilitary groups during periods of conflict. I examine three societies, Rwanda , the former Yugoslavia , and Cambodia in a comparative analysis. To determine what characteristics make societies more likely to engage in rape as a military tool, I look at the status of women in the society, the religious cultures, the degree of female integration into the military institutions, the cause of the conflicts, the history of the conflict, and finally, the status of minority ethnic groups in each of these societies.

Notwithstanding a broad range of internal and external stresses, Macedonia was the only republic to attain its independence peacefully from the otherwise violent disintegration of the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Subject of a timely and sustained international response, it was feted as a rare preventive success for the international community. Whilst not necessarily decisive, this mobilisation helped ensure a non-violent transition to independence. Yet, much to the surprise of outside observers, Macedonia would fall into conflict a decade after independence, when self-styled freedom fighters purporting to represent the local Albanian community launched an eight-month insurgency in the name of political and cultural equality. Triggered by a coalescence of political, nationalist, ideological and criminal interests, the insurgency had complex roots, as much an intra-Albanian putsch as a struggle for greater group rights. Regardless of their precise genesis, from the perspective of conflict prevention, the events of 2001 challenge popular assumptions of Macedonia as an international success story. Above all, they reinforce the need for external actors to incorporate short-term strategies of prevention targeting immediate sources of instability within a more comprehensive, long-term framework that addresses structural, underlying conflict causes. Indeed, whilst proximate threats to Macedonian stability were addressed, fundamental risk factors remained, namely social polarisation, a large ethnic minority disenfranchised with the state, economic under-development, high levels of organised crime and corruption, a weak rule-of-law and continuing regional uncertainty. These were partly aggravated by the mistakes of a complacent international community, whose engagement in the country, accordingly, receded over time. In particular, the dissertation is critical of the European Union for its initial failure to articulate a genuine pathway to membership for Macedonia and the broader western Balkans, as well as the handling of NATO's military intervention in neighbouring Kosovo. Of course, in any preventive endeavour, the international community can only do so much; in the first instance, responsibility lay with unresponsive Macedonian institutions, who failed to adequately address legitime Albanian demands dating from independence. Be that as it may, the international community was culpable for its failure to sufficiently apply the formidable soft-power leverage it wields over a weak Macedonian state to implement reforms that, conceivably, could have precluded the outbreak of armed conflict. As a case-study of prevention, Macedonia holds instructive lessons for scholars and policymakers. Yet it remains under-researched. Examining the period 1991-2001, this investigation analyses precisely why and how Macedonia avoided violence during the process of Yugoslav dissolution yet ultimately fell into conflict, and extrapolates broader lessons that may be applied to other at-risk societies. Its purpose is to advance understanding of a poorly understood country, and contribute knowledge to key on-going international security debates. Highlighting the inter-connectedness and trans-national character of contemporary security threats, it posits that the major powers have a practical interest in addressing emerging intra-state crises, even when the putative national interest appears marginal. To facilitate more timely multilateral responses, it calls for the de-nationalisation of security, and its conceptualisation in international - as opposed to strictly national - terms.

Die Dissertation untersucht einen Paradigmenwechsel in der Rezeption der historischen Avantgarde in (medien-)künstlerischen Projekten der 1980er und 1990er Jahre in Ex-Jugoslawien und Russland. Dieser Paradigmenwechsel liegt im veränderten Verhältnis zum Begriff der (politischen wie künstlerischen) Utopie begründet. In den 1980er Jahren zeichnet sich die Rezeption sowohl im sogenannten sowjetischen Postutopismus (Il’ja Kabakov, Ėrik Bulatov, Oleg Vasil’ev, Komar & Melamid, Kollektive Aktionen) als auch in der jugoslawischen Retroavantgarde (NSK, Mladen Stilinović, Malevič aus Belgrad etc.) durch ein ‚diskursarchäologisches’ Interesse an potentiell totalitären Elementen der Avantgarde aus. Seit Beginn der 1990er Jahre lässt sich eine signifikant veränderte Rezeption der historischen künstlerischen Avantgarde in Projekten junger KünstlerInnen aus dem östlichen Europa festellen (Neoutopismus, Retroutopismus). Die Utopien der Avantgarde werden im sogenannten Retroutopismus (Marko Peljhan, Vadim Fishkin) nicht mehr primär mit totalitären Tendenzen gleichgesetzt, sondern sie werden jetzt vor allem auf ihre medientechnologischen Projektionen und Entwürfe durchgesehen. Diese wurden nicht nur von einzelnen Avantgarde-Künstlern und –Theoretikern (Velimir Chlebnikov, Bertolt Brecht), sondern auch von Wissenschaftlern und Ingenieuren (Nikola Tesla, Herman Potočnik Noordung) am Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts entwickelt. In den 1990er Jahren wird in künstlerischen Projekten somit ein verstärktes medienarchäologisches Interesse für frühe utopische Technologiephantasien der Avantgarde wahrnehmbar, das symptomatisch für ein signifikant verändertes Verhältnis zur Utopie bzw. zum Utopischen ist: Das Utopische löst sich von seinem eindeutig negativen, da politisch-totalitären Beigeschmack (verstanden als ‚Utopismus’) und wird wieder verstärkt positiv politisch konnotiert, d.h. als emanzipatives oder auch visionär-gespinsthaftes Potenzial verstanden (‚Utopizität’).
The dissertation researches a paradigmatic shift in the way artists reflect the historical avant-garde in visual and media art projects of the 1980s and 1990s in (ex-)Yugoslavia and Russia. The reasons for this paradigm shift can be found in the changing relationship to the notion of utopia, both in its political and its artistic connotation. In the 1980s, the reception both in so-called Soviet postutopianism (Il’ja Kabakov, Ėrik Bulatov, Oleg Vasil’ev, Komar & Melamid, Kollektive Aktionen) and in the Yugoslav retro-avant-garde (NSK, Mladen Stilinović, Malevič from Belgrads etc.) is characterized by a ‘discourse archeological’ interest in the potentially totalitarian elements of the avant-garde. Yet this point of view changes fundamentally during the 1990s in a younger generation of artists (neoutopianism and retroutopianism). Retroutopianism (Marko Peljhan, Vadim Fishkin) no longer primarily equates the utopianism of the avant-garde with totalitarian tendencies, but is reexamined with regard to its media-technological projections and designs, which were not only developed by individual avant-garde artists and theoreticians (Velimir Khlebnikov, Bertolt Brecht) but also by scientists and engineers during the early 20th century (Nikola Tesla, Herman Potočnik Noordung). Artistic projects of the time reveal an increasing ‘media-archeological’ fascination for the avant-garde's early utopian fantasies of technology. This fascination, in turn, is symptomatic for a significant change in the relationship to utopia and utopian thinking on the whole: utopian thinking per se separates from its unambiguously negative, political-totalitarian aftertaste (understood as 'utopianism') and takes on a new positive political connotation. It is now understood as an emancipatory or visionary-spectral potentiality ('utopicity').

1 SUMMARY Regaining the Past. Yugoslav Legacy in the Period of Transition: the Case of Formal and Alternative Institutions of Art and Culture in Serbia at the End of the 20th and the Beginning of the 21st Century Before, during the existence of Yugoslav state, and in the post Yugoslav period, common cultural (and art) space was shaped by the similar language, culture, connections, mentality, territory, economic relations, (foreign) influences and art production. After the dissolution of Yugoslavia in disastrous war conflicts, a large economic and cultural crisis hit the whole Balkan region. Cruelty of the Bosnia war, together with embargo, economic crisis, severe inflation, protests, caused a cultural collective trauma in all former Yugoslav countries. Simultaneously. High level of (narrative) fragmentation occurs in all institutions as the consequence of the crisis in society. It reflects in the dysfunctionality of institutions and eventually in closing down. After the dark period of the ‘90s, in 2000, Serbia dived into progressive democratic changes and an unblocked transition process, that will become a large source of disappointment in Serbian society. During all the changes and fluctuations, Yugoslavia (idea and a state) figurate as a main culprit for a crisis and a huge mistake in the newest history. Individual memory and private space of citizens in Serbia was still crowded by the memories of the previous period, but translating into cultural memory became doubtful. For that kind of translation, and revitalization of the part of the culture, space for speech, discussion, search for meaning should be essential, initiated and placed in institutions of culture. In my research I was trying to investigate if and how Yugoslavia continued to exist in cultural institutions as a phenomenon, through values of its ideology and common and wide cultural space, as a notion, motif, and theme of the projects and events, in spite of all mentioned 2 circumstances. I intended to represent the importance of Yugoslav legacy (as a symbolic heritage in the first place), from the perspective of making continuity and finding (creating) meaning about the past, as a way of overcoming cultural trauma. The main categories and points of view I have chosen as a methodology of the research, could be named as interdisciplinary cultural study approach, through content analysis and notions of representations interpretation, discovering of symbolic or concrete presence/ absence. The material for my research were catalogues from the exhibitions and following publications, articles from newspapers and magazines, academic literature, non-official interviews, videos, comments on exhibitions, comments as a part of the program in institutions, personal interpretations of actors (artists, academics, curators, activists, audience) expressed in informal interviews and meetings, noted or recorded, so that could be incorporated in my research. Entire argument is divided into the four parts: State of Art, Historical Context, Official Institutions; Alternative Institutions accompanied with the Introduction at the beginning, and Conclusions at the end (together with Bibliography, List of Photos and Summary in English, Polish and Serbian). In the first chapter State of Art, with an overview of books, articles and projects that are connected with a theme of my work, I present different aspects of its formulation and content. The second chapter titled Historical context is dedicated to the history of South Slavic unity with overview of Yugoslav history. For the analytical part of my research I have chosen three official and three alternative institutions to describe and illustrate the place and role of the Yugoslav narrative and legacy in cultural institutions: among official those are Serbian Pavilion in Venice (Paviljon Republike Srbije u Veneciji), Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade (Muzej savremene umetnosti u Beogradu), Museum of Yugoslavia (Muzej Jugoslavije), and among nonofficial (alternative) institutions those are Centre for Cultural Decontamination (Centar za kulturnu dekontaminaciju/ CZKD), squat Inex, and alternative cultural center Catch 22 (Kvaka 22). I had an assumption that choosing from the different types of the institution could help in creating the wider image, and form the basis for a more complete map of the institutions in Serbia in the post Yugoslav period. Analytical part dedicated to official institutions placed after Historical context contains three chapters describing three institutions. 3 The first chapter in a part regarded official institutions is dedicated to the Pavilion of Republic Serbia in Venice, former Pavilion of Yugoslavia in Venice (all of state emanations). I have decided to investigate Serbian (former Yugoslav) Pavilion in Venice as the only institution where Yugoslavia still exists in the frame of international art and culture manifestations (even just as a living memory and context). The second chapter is dedicated to The Museum of Contemporary Art in Belgrade, opened in 1965 as the most prominent cultural institution representing the Yugoslav and Serbian Art of the 20th century. The Museum of Contemporary Art appears to be the institution symbol of the Yugoslav art and culture creation. The third one is dedicated to the Museum of Yugoslavia, the only institution in former Yugoslav space dedicated fully to representation of Yugoslavia. Institution showed the enormous capacity for transformation, communicating the possibility of the new modern institution. Analytical part dedicated to alternative institutions also contains three chapters with the short introduction bringing the explanations and description of alternative institutions as a phenomenon. The first chapter in a part of research Alternative institutions is dedicated to the Centre for Cultural Decontamination (Centar za kulturnu dekontaminaciju / CZKD). Being one of the oldest non official organizations in Serbia, emerged from a decisive protest against the regime of Slobodan Milošević in 1995, CZKD was my choice for the alternative institution of the older generation. As the second case I have decided to describe the squat and cultural center Inex established in a building of the Inex Film Company. The end of the analytical part dedicated to alternative institutions represents the case of Kvaka 22, as an example for the youngest generations of the artists and cultural workers, activists and citizens, and their approach towards culture and art, past and present. In the Conclusions I have presented in the same time common denominators of the all described institutions from the perspective of Yugoslav legacy, and wider context as a common space for them all. Also, I have accentuated the conclusion about the significance of cooperation between institutions, in the field of cultural memory but not just. The phenomenon of relatedness and interconnectedness appears to be crucial for the resolution of the cultural crisis.
1 Streszczenie Odzyskiwanie przeszłości. Dziedzictwo jugosłowiańskie w okresie transformacji: oficjalne i alternatywne instytucje kultury i sztuki w Serbii na przełomie XX i XXI wieku Wspólna jugosłowiańska przestrzeń kulturowa (i artystyczna) kształtowała się zanim powstała Jugosławia, w czasie jej istnienia, a także po jej rozpadzie. Czynnikami, które o tym decydowały był podobny język, kultura, powiązania, mentalność, terytorium, stosunki gospodarcze, (zewnętrzne) wpływy i produkcja artystyczna. Po rozpadzie Jugosławii w wyniku katastrofalnych konfliktów wojennych omawiany region został dotknięty ogromnym kryzysem ekonomicznym i kulturalnym. Okrucieństwo wojny w Bośni i Hercegowinie, a także embargo, kryzys ekonomiczny, ostra inflacja i protesty wywołały zbiorową traumę kulturową we wszystkich krajach byłej Jugosławii równocześnie. Konsekwencją kryzysu społecznego był wysoki stopień fragmentacji (narracji) pojawiający się we wszystkich instytucjach. Wyrażał się on w dysfunkcjonalności instytucji, a następnie w ich zamknięciu. W roku 2000, po mrocznej dekadzie lat dziewięćdziesiątych, Serbia rozpoczęła demokratyczne zmiani i odblokowała proces transformacji, który stał się powodem ogromnego rozczarowania społeczeństwa serbskiego. W trakcie tych zmian i przekształceń Jugosławia (rozumiana jako idea i państwo) zaczęła jawić się jako główny sprawca kryzysu. Pamięć indywidualną i przestrzeń prywatną obywateli Serbii wciąż wypełniały wspomnienia poprzedniego systemu, ale możliwość przełożenia tego na pamięć kulturową stała pod znakiem zapytania. Dla tego typu kulturowego przekładu i rewitalizacji wspomnianego wycinka kultury konieczna jest bowiem przestrzeń dialogu, dyskusji, poszukiwania sensu, zainicjowana i umiejscowiona w instytucjach kultury. W rozprawie podjęłam próbę odpowiedzi na pytanie, czy i w jaki sposób Jugosławia, rozumiana jako pojęcie, motyw, temat projektów i wydarzeń, przejawiająca się w określonym systemie aksjologicznym oraz fenomenie wspólnoty kulturowej – funkcjonuje w instytucjach kultury wbrew powyżej zarysowanym okolicznościom. Moim zamierzeniem było zaprezentowanie znaczenia dziedzictwa Jugosławii (przede wszystkim jego 2 symbolicznego wymiaru) w odniesieniu do procesu ustanawiania ciągłości i odnajdywania (tworzenia) sensu przeszłości jako sposobu na przezwyciężenie traumy kulturowej. Główne kategorie i perspektywy badawcze, które stały się metodologiczną podstawą moich badań, tworzą podejście nazywane interdyscyplinarnymi badaniami kulturowymi i obejmują analizę treści, interpretację reprezentacji, odkrywanie symbolicznej lub rzeczywistej obecności/nieobecności. Jako materiał naukowy posłużyły mi publikacje dotyczące wystaw i projektów, a także opracowania takie jak artykuły prasowe, filmy, komentarze do wystaw, komentarze zawarte w programach instytucji, literatura naukowa, osobiste interpretacje aktorów społecznych (artystów, naukowców, kuratorów, aktywistów) wyrażone w nieformalnych i formalnych wywiadach udzielanych podczas spotkań i zarejestrowanych przez media. Rozprawa składa się z czterech rozdziałów: Stań badań, Kontekst historyczny, Oficjalne instytucje, Alternatywne instytucje. Poprzedza je Wprowadzenie i zamykają Wnioski. W końcowej części pracy znajduje się Bibliografia, Spis ilustracji i streszczenie. W rozdziale pierwszym (Stan badań) zaprezentowałam przegląd literatury, prasy oraz projektów związanych z tematem pracy, podkreślając różnorodność w obrębie ich treści, a także w sposobach formułowania głównego problemu. Rozdział drugi (Kontekst historyczny) poświęcony jest historii idei jedności Słowian Południowych na tle historii Jugosławii. W części analitycznej rozprawy do badania roli narracji o Jugosławii i jej dziedzictwa w instytucjach kulturalnych wybrałam trzy instytucje oficjalne i trzy instytucje alternatywne. Wśród instytucji oficjalnych znalazły się: Pawilon Serbski w Wenecji (Paviljon Republike Srbije u Veneciji), Muzeum Sztuki Współczesnej w Belgradzie (Muzej savremene umetnosti u Beogradu) oraz Muzeum Jugosławii (Muzej Jugoslavije). Spośród instytucji nieoficjalnych (alternatywnych) do analizy wybrałam Centrum Dekontaminacji Kulturowej (Centar za kulturnu dekontaminaciju, CZKD), squat Inex oraz alternatywne centrum kultury Kvaka 22. Przyjęłam założenie, że taki wybór z szerokiego wachlarza instytucji przyczyni się do zaprezentowania szerokiego obrazu, a także stanowić będzie podstawę pełniejszej mapy instytucji kultury w Serbii w okresie postjugosłowiańskim. Część analityczna poświęcona oficjalnym instytucjom składa się z trzech podrozdziałów. Pierwszy podrozdział poświęcony jest Pawilonowi Serbskiemu w Wenecji, byłemu Pawilonowi Jugosławii w Wenecji (emanacji Jugosławii na każdym etapie jej politycznego istnienia). 3 Postanowiłam poddać badaniu Pawilon Serbski (były Jugosłowiański) w Wenecji jako jedyną instytucję, w której Jugosławia wciąż istnieje w ramach międzynarodowych manifestacji kultury i sztuki (choćby jako żywa pamięć i kontekst). Drugi podrozdział poświęcony jest Muzeum Sztuki Współczesnej w Belgradzie, otwartemu w 1965 roku, jako czołowej instytucji kulturalnej reprezentującej jugosłowiańską i serbską sztukę XX wieku. Muzeum Sztuki Współczesnej jawi się tu jako symbol procesu tworzenia kultury i sztuki Jugosławii. Trzeci podrozdział poświęcony jest Muzeum Jugosławii, jedynej instytucji na obszarze byłej Jugosławii w całości poświęconej Jugosławii. Instytucja ta wykazała się ogromną zdolnością transformacji, wykazując jednocześnie potencjał nowoczesnej instytucji kultury. Część analityczna poświęcona instytucjom alternatywnym również składa się z trzech podrozdziałów. Poprzedza je krótkie wprowadzenie i ogólna analiza instytucji alternatywnych jako fenomenu kulturowego. Pierwszy podrozdział poświęcony jest Centrum Dekontaminacji Kulturowej (Centar za kulturnu dekontaminaciju / CZKD). W związku z tym, że Centrum wyrosło ze zdecydowanego protestu przeciwko reżimowi Slobodana Miloševicia w 1995 roku i jest jedną z najstarszych nieoficjalnych instytucji w Serbii, zostało poddane analizie jako instytucja alternatywna starszej generacji. W drugim podrozdziale omówiony został squat i centrum kulturalne Inex, założone w budynku wytwórni filmowej Inex. W ostatnim podrozdziale części analitycznej uwagę poświęciłam instytucji alternatywnej Kvaka 22 jako przykładowi działalności najmłodszego pokolenia artystów i działaczy kultury, aktywistów, obywateli. W części Konkluzje opisałam punkty styczne wszystkich analizowanych instytucji z perspektywy dziedzictwa Jugosławii, a także naświetliłam szerszy kontekst funkcjonowania tych instytucji jako ich przestrzeń wspólną. Ponadto opisałam wnioski dotyczące znaczenia współpracy między tymi instytucjami nie tylko w obszarze pamięci kulturowej. Zjawisko pokrewieństwa i wzajemnych powiązań wydaje się mieć kluczowe znaczenie dla wyjścia z kryzysu kulturowego.

This dissertation analyzes experimental art movements in Hungary and the former Yugoslavia from 1968 to 1989, examining the variety of ways that artists responded to the ideological and practical failures of communism. I also deliberate on how artists, living in the specter of Marxist ideology, negotiated socio-political and cultural systems dominated by the state; how they undermined the moral consciousness that state socialism imposed from above; and how they created alternative ways of being in an era that had promised the opening of society and art but that failed that pledge. I suggest that some artists increasingly questioned the state's hegemony in everyday relationships, language, and symbols, and attempted to neutralize self-censorship and gain sovereignty over their own bodies and minds through "decision as art." The dissertation approaches authoritarian domination within the context of the artists' aesthetic choices, especially the development of conceptual and performance art as a mode of opposition. Deliberating on the notion of decision as central to the conceptualization and execution of resistance to the state, I focus on the alternative ways in which Yugoslavian and Hungarian artists made art in variegated forms and modes of ethical commitment. I argue that such art must be understood as an active decision to live in and through art while enduring political circumstance.

Dissertation

In the late 1960s Yugoslavian artistic production underwent radical change prompted by the emergence of a "New Art," which pursued the "dematerialization" of the art object. This enterprise necessitated new artistic approaches, methods and media, and challenged the very assumptions of established artistic discourse, rendering codified modernist art into the realm of obsolescence. Modernist art and architecture was adopted by the Titoist regime after Yugoslavia broke with Stalinist Soviet Union in 1948, initially as a sign of difference from that regime. Indeed during the fifties, modernism was a trope of progress. Formalist modernism was a potent ideological tool for the Titoist regime during the Cold War in Yugoslavia, which, playing the role of a buffer zone between the two adversary blocks, was considered an open country. While offering an aestheticized picture of reality detached from everyday life, formalist modernism became, in effect, the officially sanctioned artistic vocabulary. The tension between the new art and modernism manifested itself primarily in the conception of the individual and in the relationship between artistic practice and everyday life. In a radical shift, the new art practitioners promoted practices and forms of representation that destabilised an autonomous creator by introducing local narratives and active spectators. The bureaucrats concerned with artistic production in established institutions of art such as the Academy of Art understood this approach as an intervention into the official image of reality. After the outburst of students' discontent in 1968, the officials opened "The Student Cultural Centre" as a safety valve under the banner of accommodating "experiments in art." From the very beginning this institution fostered the wide array of cultural activities and became a "cult" space among the youth. Although it is reasonable to suppose that the regime's hidden agenda was to ghettoize the "New Art," the Student Cultural Centre, served to transform the art scene in Belgrade. In my thesis I address the socio-historical reasons that prompted this shift in the sphere of art production. The Belgrade artistic scene in the early seventies was split between canonized modernism and a periphery reserved for new art practices. The 19th century building housing Student Cultural Centre was the site where proponents of conceptual art struggled against the entrenched modernist canon by introducing new methods and media. In the analysis of new art practices I follow the work of the two artists, Marina Abramovic and Zoran Popovic, whose activity epitomized this struggle at the turn of the seventies.

On the evening of the 24th of March, 1999, the first air strikes hit multiple targets in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The “Operation Allied Force” had begun. The air raids lasted for 78 days. The Milošević regime used the “state of exception” (Agamben 2004) to further and deepen its own propagandistic imperatives of national unity and to advertise the necessity of the “war of defence” within the nation. The state started to offer a wide range of events that not only entertained its citizens but also created forums for them to meet and to “unite” against the enemy. Beyond the state-prescribed cultural events, numerous efforts sprang up throughout the city to maintain a social and cultural life. This paper will tell of the diverse ways in which the people of Belgrade spent their time between and during the air raids.